Judge allows disputed evidence in Midland woman's slaying

Mitchell Kukulka, mitchell.kukulka@mdn.net

Updated
1:37 pm EST, Monday, February 18, 2019

Joel Wallace, left, looks over documents with his attorney Dan Duke after his motion hearing Friday in the 42nd Circuit Court. He stands accused of the slaying of his great-aunt Victoria Jean Kilbourne of Midland, who was reported missing to the Midland Police Department on June 26. less

Joel Wallace, left, looks over documents with his attorney Dan Duke after his motion hearing Friday in the 42nd Circuit Court. He stands accused of the slaying of his great-aunt Victoria Jean Kilbourne of ... more

Photo: Mitchell Kukulka

Photo: Mitchell Kukulka

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Joel Wallace, left, looks over documents with his attorney Dan Duke after his motion hearing Friday in the 42nd Circuit Court. He stands accused of the slaying of his great-aunt Victoria Jean Kilbourne of Midland, who was reported missing to the Midland Police Department on June 26. less

Joel Wallace, left, looks over documents with his attorney Dan Duke after his motion hearing Friday in the 42nd Circuit Court. He stands accused of the slaying of his great-aunt Victoria Jean Kilbourne of ... more

Photo: Mitchell Kukulka

Judge allows disputed evidence in Midland woman's slaying

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A Reese man accused of killing his great-aunt in June 2018 could have taken efforts to obstruct the police investigation, a prosecutor argues.

Joel Brandon Wallace, 33, appeared in court Friday for a motion hearing. His 13-day trial is tentatively set to begin at 8:30 a.m. March 6 and to continue through March 22.

He stands accused of the murder of his great-aunt, Victoria Jean Kilbourne, 74, of Midland, who was reported missing to the Midland Police Department on June 26, 2018.

Wallace faces five counts, including homicide-murder first degree premeditated, homicide-felony murder, unlawful imprisonment, forgery and uttering and publishing. If he is convicted on all counts, he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Representing the people as prosecutor is Midland County Prosecuting Attorney J. Dee Brooks. During the motion hearing, Brooks announced his plan to present evidence during the trial that he believes could show "consciousness of guilt."

Brooks said he does not plan to use the evidence to argue that Wallace is guilty of the murder, but he will present the evidence to show Wallace could potentially be guilty of the crimes of obstruction of justice or perjury.

"What I do plan is to present the evidence, and it will be by way of letters and recorded telephone calls — letters written by the defendant and telephone calls in which he is a participant," Brooks said. "I plan to argue that (the evidence) shows consciousness of guilt: that he knows he's guilty, that he's doing everything he can to obstruct the investigation and try to focus it on other places because he knows that there is all this evidence against him."

The evidence Brooks mentioned includes letters and phone calls sent while Wallace was held in the Midland County Jail. One conversation indicates at one point Wallace instructed his wife to ask a friend to drive by his hunting property to see if it had been disturbed, which Brooks argues shows Wallace wondered if police had found Kilbourne's body at that location.

Brooks also said Wallace at one point instructed his wife to buy a "burner" phone to have her and other people call in anonymous tips to the prosecutor's office and local media claiming they saw a dark-colored SUV parked at Kilbourne's home at about 11 p.m. on June 25, 2018.

Brooks also claimed that Wallace wrote a letter to his friend Jason Louchart, which he addressed as "Jason Louchart, Attorney at Law." Brooks argues Wallace did this to prevent it from being opened — investigation proved that Louchart was not an attorney. In the letter, which is also referenced in phone calls made from the jail, Wallace asked Louchart to get another friend to play the part of Wallace's brother in a recording where the brother "confesses" to the crime.

Wallace's attorney Dan Duke argued to not allow the evidence to be presented in court because it could potentially move the focus of the jury "away from the core facts of the case."

"(The evidence) could be a consciousness of guilt or it could be an innocent person's effort to show that they didn't do it, or are trying to get out of the mess that they found themselves in, whether they're responsible for it or not," Duke said.

Judge Stephen P. Carras moved to make the evidence admissible in court for the time being.

According to Kilbourne's landlord, per an affidavit acquired by the Midland Daily News, Kilbourne had been loaning Wallace money but had expressed wanting to stop as Wallace was not paying her back.

With the help of Kilbourne's nephew, Wallace's father, it was discovered there was a voicemail from Huntington Bank's Fraud Investigation Department on her home telephone asking about the legitimacy of a $2,000 check. The nephew later contacted his son to confirm that he had routinely received money from Kilbourne and had recently deposited a check from her on June 25.

Wallace was brought into the Midland Law Enforcement Center on June 27 to speak with officers regarding his contact with Kilbourne. Wallace said he had called his great-aunt on her landline with his cell phone at 9:30 p.m. June 25 and had in-person contact with her at 10 p.m. to pick up a check from her. Wallace's cell phone was then seized and it was determined the last time he had contact with Kilbourne was around 5 p.m. on June 25. He also stated that a hold had been placed on the $2,000 check he said was given to him by Kilbourne, but did not know why the money did not deposit.

When contacted by the police, Huntington Bank officials said their fraud department placed the check on hold after it was determined the signature on the check did not match the signature card in Kilbourne's file, and the check number was also out of sequence.

Through a search warrant obtained to search Wallace's vehicle, the Michigan State Police were able to process the vehicle on June 28, finding evidence of blood and a roll of black tape.

A final search warrant for Wallace's hunting property, located near Onaway, was obtained on June 30. Kilbourne's body was later found there in a shallow grave. Her legs, wrists and mouth were bound with black tape, which the affidavit lists as being "identical" to the tape found in Wallace's truck. Upon autopsy, it was found that Kilbourne's cause of death appeared to be blunt force trauma to the head and possible suffocation.

Wallace is being held without bond in the Midland County Jail. On July 9, 2018, he entered a not guilty plea.